Recapping the end of Thursday action at the WSOP
Kabbaj Picks up the Cabbage
London professional John Kabbaj took down the $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem World Championship for $633,335 and his first WSOP bracelet, defeating Kirill Gerasimov in heads-up play. Gerasimov has now made nine WSOP final tables without taking down a bracelet, passing Andy Bloch to become the \”leader\” in that statistic. Eric Baldwin finished in 3rd, followed by Belgium\’s Davidi Kitai in 4th and J.C. Alvarado in 5th for an international top 5.
Everyone (But Tenner*) Loves Raymond
Derek Raymond defeated Mark Tenner in a 12-hour long final table in the $2,500 Omaha 8 or Better event, good for $229,129 and a WSOP gold bracelet. Mark Tenner, Omaha-8 author and co-founder of the PPA picked up $141,647 for the runner-up finish.
*Statement probably not true.
Lopez Leads Mixed Field
The final table of the $2,500 Mixed Holdem event is down to its final table, which will be seated as follows, with the first member of 2008\’s November Nine making a final table in 2009:
Seat 1: Bahador Ahmadi – 708000
Seat 2: Zachary Humphrey – 99000
Seat 3: Barry Greenstein – 193000
Seat 4: Hasan Habib – 114000
Seat 5: Karlo Lopez – 941000
Seat 6: Randy Haddox – 555000
Seat 7: John McGuiness – 406000
Seat 8: Ylon Schwartz – 286000
Seat 9: Matt Woodward – 653000
The final table will be streamed over at ESPN360 and wsop.pkr.com
Friedman Finishes First (For Friday)
Perry Friedman will be the chip leader (144,500) when action resumes in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better at 2pm Friday. He\’ll be joined by Brandon Cantu (105,000), Noah Boeken (64,300), Aaron Kanter (52,000), Phil Hellmuth (41,400), and Randy Holland (38,000) among the notables.
$50,000 HORSE Goes Giddy-Up
The $50,000 HORSE event starts at 12pm today for the first of five scheduled days. The big question will be how many people will enter the event, especially with no ESPN television coverage. Last year Scotty Nguyen and his drunken antics managed to win, taking down almost $2,000,000 in a field of 148. The WSOP Staff Guide projected 151 entries for this event, a similar number to the previous three years. Some say the field will fall to around 100, as some online poker sites will not put up the money for its lesser known players to participate. That will leave it to the big names (and a few that will leave people wondering) making up the field fighting it out for the most prestigious WSOP bracelet outside of the Main Event.
Obligatory Limit Shootout Mention
At 5pm, the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout begins. Last year, Matt Graham defeated Jean-Robert Bellande heads-up for the bracelet and over $275,000 in a field of 823. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 901 for this event.
Pokerati will have more about the WSOP during the day, and follow www.wsop.com for live updates during the afternoon.
